


dyed his red heart to black

by fugues



Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-27
Updated: 2013-12-27
Packaged: 2018-01-06 10:02:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1105495
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fugues/pseuds/fugues
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He can feel as soon as he leaves the Key that something is wrong.</p>
<p>(that there is a precious thing missing)</p>
            </blockquote>





	dyed his red heart to black

**Author's Note:**

> for a fillathon prompt that was as follows: "Yuma/Astral- "Yuma, what is wrong with you?!" Astral felt a chill run through his being as Yuma gave an evil chuckle. He lifted his head, revealing mismatched eyes of red and black, and said in a voice that was Yuma's and Black Mist's combined, a tone cold as ice, two words that seemed to make time slow to a standstill.
> 
> "Yuma's dead.""
> 
> didn't manage to make the astral/yuuma that overt but there's some vague hints of yuuma/96, astral/96 and astral/yuuma so that's something right

He can feel it as soon as he leaves the Key. That something is  _wrong_ , that this—  
  
It’s Yuuma, and the key around its neck and everything he can see about its body tell him that. But it cannot (must not) be Yuuma; not Yuuma who’s all sunlight and starshine no matter that he’s so very, very human. Because this thing, this  _creature_  is blackness and thick, choking darkness and a stench somehow almost Barian and—  
  
(it is so very familiar)  
  
“Yuuma,” he breathes, voice sticking in his throat so that it becomes nothing more than a choked whisper on the way out. “Yuuma, what is wrong with you?”  
  
And Yuuma  
  
laughs.  
  
(it remains familiar, but it cannot be)  
  
He - it - laughs, and Yuuma’s head is tilted up by the thing puppeting him to reveal mismatched eyes; one the pink-red that Astral knows so well, and the other—  
  
(Astral knows that kind of unending blackness too, has seen it in one half of yet another pair of mismatched eyes)  
  
“Yuuma’s dead.”  
  
And Yuuma’s voice is there, it speaks in  _Yuuma’s voice_ , but it rings out with another echoing behind it and—  
  
(oh, but he knows that voice all too well, has heard it whisper into his ears until here and there he’d been tempted to give in if only to end the ecstasy and the agony of that voice twisting his thoughts)  
  
“Numbers 96,” he manages. Nothing more than that, then, for his voice catches again in his throat and chokes him silent and—  
  
And then there’s a hand on his throat, choking him much more effectively, and Astral’s eyes go wide and shocked but doesn’t it make sense? Yuuma has managed to touch him here and there, after all, and hasn’t that creature managed to touch him every time it’s tried?  
  
(he remembers a tendril thrust through his heart and he cannot breathe for all that he doesn’t truly need to)  
  
“He’s dead,” it repeats in that mockery of Yuuma’s voice, and its grip on his neck tightens and then it’s sliding Yuuma’s hand into his hair and holding him in close even as it releases his throat and lets him choke in an unnecessary breath.  
  
“He’s dead. Don Thousand burnt him out to put me here,” it says, and those mismatched eyes focus half-lidded on Astral’s face, Yuuma-and-the-Numbers all in one so that he can hardly bear to look at it.  
  
(cannot bear at all, but it holds him in place and won’t let him free)  
  
“I’m all that’s left of him,” it says then, barely a breath. “All you have left.”  
  
And it has always been seductive, even when its voice has rung out alone, but—  
  
(he can feel Yuuma’s absence)  
  
“Yes,” he breathes, and knows that he’s let it win in whatever scheme it’s been planning, but—  
  
(but finds despite himself that he doesn’t care, with Yuuma gone)


End file.
